On Feb 18, 7:12*am, Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article ,
*Wes Groleau wrote:

On 02-16-2013 12:37, The Daring Dufas wrote:
survival of the country as a whole. The once mighty Postal Service has
crumbled because of it and the final most destructive spawn of that

The postal service's problems are not from affirmative action.

It's from the business model of making you and I pay enough for first
class stamps to let junk mail go nearly free.

The more we switch to e-mail and other online mechanisms, the more they
have to raise the stamp prices. *Which makes us even more likely to use
the 'net, so they raise it again.

Actually most of the problem lies with Congress and the way they are
making USPS pay all of their retiree health insurance payments in
advance. Something no other company that I am aware of is mandated to
do. Its financial problems are the direct result of an unfair provision
in the Postal Accountability and Enhancements Act that mandates that the
Postal Service fully fund 75 years of future retiree healthcare costs
(even for future employees not yet born) in over 10 years. No other
government agency or public company in America, including UPS or FedEx,
is required to pre-fund future retiree health benefits.
* * *From 2007 through 2010, net operating losses for that same period
were $20.2 billion. The entire amount is due to the payments to pre-fund
those future retiree health benefits which $20.9 billion have been made
in the past four years. Thus, without the unique burden imposed by the
pre-funding requirement, everything else equal, the Postal Service would
have enjoyed a cumulative profit of $700 million during those years. '

Also, most studies show that junk *mail actually subsidizes first class
mail.
--

You have a reference for those studies? Junk mail
apparently slightly exceeds the volume of regular mail.
Yet they are paying as little as 1/3 the rate. I guess it
could be made up in part by the fact that it doesn't
have to be fully sorted, run through the system individually,
etc. At least some of it comes in a big bundle and
the carrier just puts one in each box.

And factor in the postal services problems is that
Congress won't let them close or consolidate unprofitable
post offices. They have to keep them open to provide
convenient service so some folks won't have to drive
another 5 miles to the post office.